Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Development feedback on user interface, features and general design.

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unklStewy
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Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Post by unklStewy » Fri Nov 21, 2014 12:26 pm

OWM - Initial Release Feature List (Kickstarter)
  • Basic "drawing" tools: landmass, water body, river, road, region and more!
    Image

  • Different pen styles for each "drawing tool," including random fractal segments, line segments, curve segments and Bézier curves, and free hand pen. Random segments can be regenerated real-time with hotkey.
    Image
    "Fractal Pen mimics patterns found in nature"

  • Customizable settings for each map element include textures and backgrounds, outlines, shadows and more. All with independent and overall opacity settings. All rasterize real-time as they are changed.
    Image
    "Properties for a map object. (i.e. Landmass)"

  • Automatic generation of shorelines for landmasses, lakes, and rivers. Shorelines have different style options, such as spread and color, and can be changed, enabled or disabled, at any time.
    Image
    "Auto generated shoreline types for land"
    Image
    "Shorelines from different landmasses interact automatically."
    Image
    "Lake and river shorelines"

  • River tool has smart connection to other rivers and landmasses (Can be toggled ON or OFF)
    Image
    "Automated tool to make rivers and lakes merge seemlesly"

  • Automatic integration between rivers and water bodies, so that rivers "merge visually" into lakes, but remain as separate layers.
    Image
    "Automated tool to make rivers and lakes merge seemlesly"

  • Region tool can follow existing elements (landmasses, water bodies, other regions, etc.) to indicate natural borders (Can be toggled ON or OFF)
    Image
    "Region tool can follow existing map objects"

  • Label tool for placement of map text. Customizable font, color and outline color, style and alignment, as well as rotation angle.

  • Feature tool for adding map symbols (castles, mountains, etc). Edit options for map symbols: scaling, rotation and opacity settings, as well as ink color (You will be able to import your own Map Features. (See Art Importing Tool below).

  • Canvas options: fill canvas with a color, a texture and/or image, each with independent opacity controls! The canvas can be set to your own image of a map and then traced with Other World Mapper's tools.

  • Move, Scale and Rotate tools may be used on all map objects.
    Link to Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6zxIzfVkJk

  • The ability to modify shapes from control points, for all the map item types.

  • Copy properties from one item, and paste to another. Set the tool properties based on an item's properties.

  • Default themes that set the default properties for all tools, allowing creation of maps in a particular style quickly.

  • The ability to save and share your own default settings as your own map theme.

  • Square and Hex grid with options for line style, thickness, color and opacity, as well as vertical and horizontal spacing, and optional snapping.
    Image
    "The map from our video with grid enabled (grid opacity at 32%)"

  • Distance tool and the option to set the map scale.

  • Anti-aliasing for objects and effects, blending of objects with "smooth" edges.

  • Option to have a circle or ellipse represent the edge of a flat map (instead of rectangular edge).

  • Art importing tool to make it easy for you to bring your own artwork into Other World Mapper.

  • Multiple document interface. You can have multiple maps opened as separate tabs and copy/paste items between them.

  • Exporting of maps to various image formats (jpg, png, bmp, etc) and PDF, and the option to upscale exported map.

  • Exporting of “raw” vector data to SVG format (i.e. landmasses, regions, etc. without rasterization), and the ability to export pixel coordinate data for map features (i.e. xml file). This should be particularly helpful for game developers.

  • Printing/Plotting of high resolution maps.

  • Separate layers for each map object and layers window to hide/show and swap z-order of individual map items, or entire map item category (i.e. change the z-order of all regions).
OWM - Stretch Goal Feature List
  • Stretch Goals As Listed and Unlocked on Kickstarter
    Image
OWM - Possibly Adopted Features as suggested in comments @ Kickstarter - (May Not Appear in Initial Release)
  • Stretch Goals As Suggested and Liked/Commented on by Three Minds Software*
    • Continental Drift Tool - Using a region tool to define a cutaway section from a larger landmass with drag and move options to simulated continental drift.
    • Canyon Tool Setting - Either a tool setting for the river and lake tool or a unique tool to implement simple canyon features on a map.
    *If you made a feature request in a comment on Kickstarter please post it below and I will add it into this post.
Best Regards,
Casey :ugeek:
unklStewy
Stewart A.
Wisterian Realms
www.wisterian.net

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Kanchou
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Re: Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Post by Kanchou » Sat Nov 22, 2014 12:50 pm

It's good that you've got a list going here. I went ahead and made the post "sticky."
But FYI we're planning on listing the features on the OWM website. That way there is a definite place people can go to see the current feature list. We haven't got it up yet, but we're working on it. We're shooting to have all the initial sections of the website up by the end of this month. :)
Alejandro S. Canosa
Three Minds Software

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unklStewy
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Re: Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Post by unklStewy » Mon Nov 24, 2014 2:29 pm

So sticky....

Thanks Kanchou, this was more of a stop gap so people could take a look and see what was in the works.

Thanks for keeping up with us. I know you three are probably swamped.

Casey :ugeek:
unklStewy
Stewart A.
Wisterian Realms
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Kanchou
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Re: Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Post by Kanchou » Sun Dec 07, 2014 10:34 pm

We've been focused on development, so the website got placed a bit in the back of the priorities. However, we went through all our notes, KS messages, KS comments, forum and reddit conversations we've had, and made a list of all the features beyond what's clear from the Kickstarter campaign.

Certain
This is a list of features/topics that will be part of Other World Mapper from the first release, but this fact may not have been clear from the Kickstarter page.
  • Forums will stay live after release.
  • OWM will support all the typical keyboard shortcuts, ctrl to keep ratio, shortcuts for adding and subtracting items from a selection, copy and paste, etc.
  • Ability to save shapes, etc. created with Other World Mapper's tools as map symbols (same formats as map export, minus pdf).
  • Option/feature to export location notes.
  • Tool to brake apart “large landmass” into smaller landmasses that fit into each other.
  • Support for elevation contour lines, either as its own tool or as an option for regions.
  • Guidelines for isometric and oblique projections.
  • Ability to set export resolution when exporting a map, and not just the pixel size (beyond 72dpi).
  • Distort options for shorelines so they don't have the equal width appearance.
  • Dedicated sea route tool
  • We structured the program for easy localization. We'll provide a translations spreadsheet to anybody who feels like helping us with localization to specific languages.
Maybe
This is a list of features/topics that we want to be a part of Other World Mapper, but may have to wait for releases after the first.
  • Automatic z-order of symbols (North to South). One setting for this to happen automatically as you place the symbols, and another option to apply this logic to a selected group of symbols.
  • Batch export of map as layers with one click.
  • X-Y "raw text data" as a valid source of vector data and support for DXF format.
  • Small animations (small flag on a castle, smoke...) for DM mode
  • Additional custom shapes for map edges (beyond rectangle or ellipse).
  • Dedicated canal tool (that joins up with rivers and lakes) or custom settings for river tool.
  • Shoreline control points so that you could manually change the shape of shorelines.
  • Adding settings to the region, “lake” or river tool to give a good canyon effect. If adding that makes the tool too cumbersome though, we might go ahead and make it its own tool.
  • Ability to tag map items and be able to apply settings (i.e. hide) to all items with that tag.
  • Customizable layers/types.
  • Setting to follow the contour of hex grids to emulate some of the behavior of hex tile base tools.
  • One of the themes can be “grid map” so that all the tools are set to defaults that make it easy to follow the hex grid. 
  • Allow a "visibility" layer to be defined, which you could either show/hide or tie to a zoom %, so that you only show the higher detail when you want.
We also have a list of features that were mentioned throughout, but we don't foresee being a part of the first release of Other World Mapper. We'll post and discuss those as we get closer to our release.

If we missed anything, please let us know! Also let us know if you have any questions from this list.

- Alejandro
Alejandro S. Canosa
Three Minds Software

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Sir Clarence
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Re: Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Post by Sir Clarence » Mon Dec 08, 2014 9:46 am

OWM sounds better and better the more I read about it. Can't wait to get it!

Odd Hollis
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Re: Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Post by Odd Hollis » Wed Dec 10, 2014 8:29 am

I've got a couple of questions here:

First, will we have the option to 'zoom' the maps in and out so we could have a thumbnail with names of major features like names of kingdoms and seas, and then the larger one with all the names of cities and such on it? Actually, being able to temporarily hide things would be a handy feature for making a player version of the map.

Second, which image formats will it be able to export to? I ask for compatibility with Realm Works.

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Big Mac
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Re: Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Post by Big Mac » Thu Dec 11, 2014 7:44 am

Kanchou wrote:<snip>

Maybe[*]Ability to tag map items and be able to apply settings (i.e. hide) to all items with that tag.[/list]

<snip>Also let us know if you have any questions from this list.
Thanks Alejandro,

I've got a question about this feature from the maybe list.

If people can zoom in and out, would it be possible to use the tagging system so that small locations (like villages) can automatically get shown when people zoom in, but get hidden when people zoom out?
David "Big Mac" Shepheard
(A Spelljammer fan hoping to user Other World Mapper to make lots of maps of planets.)
You can see more of me over at The Piazza campaign settings forums

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Kanchou
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Re: Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Post by Kanchou » Thu Dec 11, 2014 11:51 pm

Odd Hollis wrote:First, will we have the option to 'zoom' the maps in and out so we could have a thumbnail with names of major features like names of kingdoms and seas, and then the larger one with all the names of cities and such on it?
There will be two ways to achieve this
1. Using the multiple views feature. You can add detail to the derived view (say an area of the map), while it remains linked to the main map view.
2. Defining a "visibility layer," or zoom % threshold where certain detail starts to show up. I placed that under the "Maybe" list above.
Odd Hollis wrote:Actually, being able to temporarily hide things would be a handy feature for making a player version of the map.
Every object recides on its own layer, so you can hide individual items, or entire layers worth of items (i.e. all roads, all regions, etc).
Odd Hollis wrote:Second, which image formats will it be able to export to? I ask for compatibility with Realm Works.
jpg, png, bmp (from the Kickstarter), we'll try to add TIFF. Any others that interest you? We would be happy to add them.

Thank you for the questions!

- Alejandro
Alejandro S. Canosa
Three Minds Software

stefanstr
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Re: Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Post by stefanstr » Fri Dec 12, 2014 3:34 am

Kanchou wrote:
Odd Hollis wrote:Second, which image formats will it be able to export to? I ask for compatibility with Realm Works.
jpg, png, bmp (from the Kickstarter), we'll try to add TIFF. Any others that interest you? We would be happy to add them.

Thank you for the questions!

- Alejandro
I would like to see support for SVG.

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unklStewy
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Re: Feature List for OWM Intial Release As Posted on Kickstarter

Post by unklStewy » Fri Dec 12, 2014 9:03 am

Alejandro,

I would second stefanstr's .SVG support suggestion. The SVG format would be great for Wiki exports and it is always nice to have an clean scaling base map for other print projects. From what I understand OWM is a vector art engine at it's core, would this make it easier to have vector output.

One good use for this would be a export of maps to plotting systems and vector cutters.
  • One of the things I've wanted to do for a while is plot my adventure worlds onto vinyl and have it laid onto a ferrous back plate.
  • You could hang it on the wall in the Game Den and as your party moves through the world you could push magnetic tokens around and then put labels on cities as they are discovered.
  • There are vinyl substrates which work well as dry erase material.
These are the nerd pipe dreams that I live with. And for the techno savvy nerd it's not that far fetched to invest in. A decent plotter/cutter can be had on e-bay for $200.00 or so.. enough that it will allow you to lay the vinyl in strips.

I digress, but the idea of having one or two vector exports would be awesome!

Casey :ugeek:
unklStewy
Stewart A.
Wisterian Realms
www.wisterian.net

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